What are you supposed to do when the person you love more than anything in the world doesn’t support your business?

This question comes up often and, while it leaves me feeling caught between a rock and hard place, it makes a great topic for my Shop Talk series. Who am I to tell you what to do when your spouse doesn’t support your business goals? I’m not a relationship expert, but what I can tell you is that it probably stems from one of two things – and possibly a third, but that third one is a big outlier.

Let me tell you what my theory is…

My theory is, when a spouse does not support your business it’s usually one of two things, plain and simple.

When you’re in a relationship and you’re also an entrepreneur building a business, you often start by making a lot of promises to your partner about how things will proceed financially.

“I’m going to make X amount of money by a certain date.”

“I’m going to replace my income from the job I just left.”

“I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that…”

If you don’t actually follow through, your spouse ends up bearing the burden of the financial upkeep of the family because you failed to generate sales and profits in your business.

The first reason is related to money – how much is coming in, how much is going out, all of it.

That can be a really difficult thing to deal with because money makes people crazy. Money is the root of all kinds of arguments. If you have failed to actually deliver on what you said you were going to do when it comes to money; that can cause a lot of problems.

Think about it like this – if you made those same promises to a bank and you didn’t follow through they’d be upset too. The bank expects you to deliver, and so does your spouse. Your spouse may be more willing to forgive you than the bank but it still all boils down to doing what you said you would do. And, if you can’t do it; having that conversation BEFORE the issue festers and causes your spouse to not want to support your business goals.

The second reason is attention.

What I mean by that is, are you giving your spouse the right amount of attention or are you working all the time. On your phone nonstop, on Facebook all the time, on Twitter all the time, on email all the time? You run the risk of making them feel like they don’t matter anymore. If you’re doing this, then that’s probably why they don’t want to support your business goals.

It’s affecting your relationship because you are no longer paying attention to the life you have with them.

The first thing you need to do is identify which problem you have. Is it because your business is not generating its fair contribution to your family? Or, is it your business has captured all of your attention and you’re no longer making time for the person that’s supposed to matter most to you? It could be a combination of both of those things, but the solution remains the same:

Communication.

You need to have a conversation with your significant other.

You need to find out what is it that they need to see in order to feel like they can support your business goals.

Do you need to generate a certain amount of income by a set time or else you have to get a job? That might be one of the things that you need to do. Or, maybe you need to make an agreement that after 5 ‘o clock, you’re going to shut down your phone and you’re not going to use technology during the evening because you’re going to be focused on giving attention to your relationship. You really don’t know until you ask, but if your spouse is always giving you little jibes about you being on your phone, always busy, or always working – that’s what you would call a clue. It means they feel like your business is more important than they are.

Good communication can move you past both of those challenges.

The third thing is an outlier, and it’s that it’s not about the business at all.

Something else is going on inside of the relationship that has nothing to do with the business, and it’s not just your business that they’re not supportive of. They’re not supportive of you as a person because your relationship is on the rocks. If your relationship is on the rocks, I am not the person you should be seeking advice from.

I can help your business take flight, but help with your relationship is something you should be talking to a marriage counsellor about, not some person who integrates modern marketing into effective business strategy to increase sales or profits.

I want you to tell me what you think – watch the video and leave me a comment below. Why do you think spouses are sometimes not supportive of their partners businesses, and what suggestions do you have for people about how they can make things better?

Are you a Thought Reader?

I am bringing a group of people together for a year who are interested in learning and discussing what they learn in a private community.

Usable Strategies for Entrepreneurs

Every week in your inbox!

6 Comments

Lisa you are bang on. I’m an entrepreneur, married AND I help couples with intimacy problems. I’ve been there and it’s hard. But we worked through it. Now he’s fully supportive and I have more energy to help others through my business. Your points are exactly right. If you have an unsupportive partner, there could be layers of concerns that all need to be addressed. Money, attention, physical intimacy (sexual & non-sexual), emotional intimacy, poor communication, not knowing how to openly or effectively talk about the tough stuff.
Have the money talk. Be honest about where your attention goes. Get to the core of your intimacy problems and work on them!

Zeya

Excellent blog! I have another thought which your readers might find interesting. Often times our desire for entrepreneurship is different from that of our spouse. We tend to think that they should work as hard and as dedicated as we do since in the long run, we both will benefit from the eventual rewards. If we continue to believe this then we may get resentful towards them. This resentfulness is picked up by the spouse and eventually gets reciprocated back to us. We notice the effect and fail to see the cause. That is what happened to me. When I realized that my wife was supporting me in her own way, I began to see things differently. I am still doing what I need to do but not expecting her to join in the “trenches” with me. Hope this resonates with your readers.

Lindsay

Heather

Sometimes a spouse can have insecurity issues to begin with. Having someone to “take care of them”. First it was their mother than a wife. Way back my ex was jealous of how well I was doing at my corporate job and kept making comments if I had to work late or travel for a few days.

Great video Lisa! While coaching direct sales leaders, this always came up! “My husband is not supportive of my business!” My advice was always you need to have a conversation about what you both expect from this business. Quite often both the scenarios you mentioned were present. Love shop talk!